Page:Letters of a Javanese princess, by Raden Adjeng Kartini, 1921.djvu/47

 five gentlemen walking, three of them turned another way, but these two had followed Papa's carriage in to the kaboepatin. They thought (the gentlemen were new to Java) that the way the carriage took was a public road, and our house a fortress or something of the kind. Papa sent a servant to ask the gentlemen if they wished to see him. They were embarrassed, naturally, because they had made such a mis- take and followed some one to his own house. What would they do now? They did not find it pleasant by any means, because they did not understand our language, and spoke only very bad, broken Malayish. Papa put an end to this awkward situation by going to meet them himself, and addressing them in Dutch. Embarrassment was at an end. They would come with pleasure into the house. It turned out that one of them was a relative of some one whom Papa knew well. I do not remember to have ever felt so much at my ease with an utter stranger. I did not think once of the fact that I had never seen these people before, and had not known of their existence five minutes ago. It is strange how with sailors one feels at home right away. Our hearts have always been set upon the sea; everything that concerns it interests us. You know well what a delight it is to us to be taken out even in a little row boat. We love the sea; you remember the time when I lay half -dead in the bow of the opium skiff, even then I found it pleasant to be upon such a bed? If I were a boy, I should not think twice, but would become a sailor at once. Imagine to yourself Father saying to the gentlemen, "My daughters would be so pleased if they could be permitted to go on board." Father knows everything that goes on in our hearts. Father does not tell us so, yet I am certain of it. Now and then Papa tells one or the other of us precisely what we have been thinking ; something that we had —25—